


The Spiral Alchemist

by Laylah



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-18
Updated: 2008-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:49:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The alchemy that did this to Viral, that made him...whatever he is now, isn't settled at all. The reaction still seethes under his skin, incomplete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spiral Alchemist

The rest of the guys are already there when Simon makes it to the office at 0845 hours, so Rossiu must have been really hounding them. Whatever it is he has to tell them must be important.

"Morning," Simon says, smiling a little sheepishly, because even Kittan -- who once shot the bell off a reveille bugle, when their squad was up north -- has gotten here before him.

"Simon!" Kamina says. "You can do something about this, right?" He holds out a cup of steaming coffee in a mess hall mug, one of the ones you're not supposed to take out with you.

"Ah, sorry." Simon shakes his head. "Even alchemy can't fix mess hall coffee."

"Tch," Kamina says, and stares into the mug dejectedly. Out of the corner of his eye, Simon can see Rossiu smirking just a tiny bit, without looking up. _He_ doesn't have to worry about it; Kinon bought him a coffeemaker for his birthday, so when he got here at 0715 or something awful like that he probably made his own.

Kamina puts the mug down on a stack of papers that are probably important, and flops on the couch next to Yoko. He throws an arm over her, which means his hand lands on Kittan's shoulder, and Kittan shrugs to try to brush him off but Kamina ignores it.

"So what's the big news?" Yoko asks. She's always good at distracting them when they get on each other's nerves. "You know something interesting, right, lieutenant colonel?"

Rossiu blushes a little, probably because of the way she says his title -- they got him _so_ drunk to celebrate that promotion, last month, and he woke up to a more close-up view of her cleavage than anyone but Boota usually gets -- and clears his throat. "I -- yes," he says, and puts his pen down. "I have good news. We're -- Viral is coming back."

They all ask questions at once, even Boota, peering out of Yoko's jacket. Simon's question is, "When?"

Rossiu lets them get it out of their systems, and then smiles. "He was offered a pardon in exchange for research assistance for one of the other State Alchemists. I'm told the process has gone well and he should come back to us this morning."

"That's great!" Kittan says.

"I don't know. I think 'great' would have been throwing out my conviction. But this isn't too bad."

They all turn at the sound of Viral's voice, and the _feel_ of powerful alchemy hits Simon before he even sees the evidence.

Kamina's the fastest to react, like usual. "What the fuck did they do to you?" he asks. Viral's hands are claws now, dull gray-brown and too big for the rest of him, and -- Simon squints, looks closer -- his good eye is yellow and slitted.

He smiles, showing off a mouth full of jagged teeth. "Rossiu just told you, right? I agreed to help out with the Helix Alchemist's newest project, and they let me out of prison." He shrugs. The way the muscle moves in his shoulder looks weird, but Simon can't say why. "Since you guys hadn't come to break me out yet or anything."

"You," Kamina declares, "are one crazy tough bastard. Welcome back to the Crimson Brigade!" He gets up, crosses the room to give Viral one of those rib-crushing hugs that he seems to think are friendly instead of life-threatening. Viral's good eye goes wide, and he makes a choking noise, but he's missed them, it's pretty obvious. He's not even struggling.

Kittan gets up next, and it's not like any of them really want to be left out of a good thing, so they all take a turn. When Yoko smushes Viral up against her chest -- and he blushes, too, like he's forgotten what she was like -- Boota jumps out of her jacket and perches on his shoulder, snuffling at his hair.

Viral looks down at Boota, making a face. "You think you've found one of your own kind, or something?"

"Buuu," Boota says, and clings to Viral's neck.

"He's just happy to see you," Simon says. "Like the rest of us." He steps up to take his turn, and the second he touches Viral's skin he feels ill. The alchemy that did this to Viral, that made him...whatever he is now, isn't settled at all. The reaction still seethes under his skin, incomplete. Simon tries to keep smiling as he pulls back from the hug. "How are you feeling?"

"I've been worse," Viral says, with this little twist to his mouth like he thinks it's something he can joke about. "How about you? I hear you passed the state exam. What, did they let you draw pictures instead of writing an essay?"

*

He'd like to say it feels like he never left, but that's not right, not really what's going on here. There's no way to pretend the last few years haven't happened. Well, Kamina's doing a good job of it, but Kamina's idiocy is bulletproof. Viral knows better. Most of the others do, too. He can see it in their eyes.

It's still good to be out, no matter how strange he's gotten in the process. And the Crimson Brigade...they smell good, the stupid bastards. They drag him around all over the base and halfway across Central, pointing out who's gotten promotions and where the new bars have opened up, and Viral keeps catching himself breathing deep to try to untangle their scents. His claws feel awkward and heavy, and he's cut his tongue on his own teeth more than once in the last few days, but he thinks the sharper sense of smell is one thing he can live with. They smell like coming home, like a chance to let his guard down.

At first they're just one big sloppy confusing mess, the Crimson Brigade, a single overwhelming scent, but by lunch time Viral's starting to pick out the differences -- the way Kamina's rawness is like and not like Kittan's at the same time, the way Yoko's constant undertone of hot musk gets more obvious when either of them is in arm's reach. The way Rossiu puts off as much alpha-male sharpness as both of them put together. The way the green sting of alchemy rolls off Simon in steady waves that seem more soothing than alarming, somehow.

It helps to fill in all the gaps between the stories they tell him about the last few years. He wants to be angry with them for...moving on, maybe, for going on with their lives after he got railroaded into that prison sentence. But they open up the unit -- the _pack_, for fuck's sake -- and let him back in as if he couldn't possibly belong anywhere else, and Viral can't stay angry.

Especially with Simon, who's following him around like a lost puppy. It's almost like he has a crush, and who'd have thought Simon would turn out like that? But that's not quite it, or not entirely it. There's something else in his eyes when he watches Viral move.

So when the brigade is going their separate ways after dinner -- sort of separate; Yoko's probably not going home alone -- and Simon says, "You want to go have a drink before you turn in for the night?" Viral nods.

"You're buying," he says, because the least they can do for him is spoil him a little. "You and your fancy alchemist's salary."

"Fair enough." Simon grins, getting up from the table, and Viral follows suit. This should get him a chance to ask what the hell's going on, if nothing else.

The evening's cool, outside the mess hall. Summer's already over in Central, even if it'll be nice down in Viral's home town of Dublith for another few weeks. They walk away from the base and Viral tries to keep watching Simon, realizes he's expecting Simon to be his anchor when the rest of Central seems so strange.

"What is it?" he asks eventually, as the turn down a side street. The detour's welcome enough. The lamps on the main street are harsh, the light stinging and sharp. "If you want something, say it."

"You're as blunt as ever," Simon says, smiling a little and not looking at him. "How do you feel?"

"Fine," Viral says. It's not entirely true -- he's tired, and aches like he's been going through basic all over again. But he's had a lot worse, and he doesn't need a brat like Simon trying to mother him.

"Tell me if anything goes wrong, okay?" Simon asks. "That was some pretty serious alchemy Colonel Genome did to you."

"Sure," Viral says. "Don't worry about it so much. I feel fine."

And then suddenly he _doesn't_ \-- he's dizzy, that fast, and when he reaches out one hand to steady himself the wall is so rough against his fingertips he can barely stand to touch it. His stomach lurches.

"Viral?" Simon asks. "You _sure_ you're okay?"

"Shut up," Viral says. "I'm -- no." His veins burn, his muscles spasming, and his legs give out under him before he can take another step. He opens his mouth to complain or say what's wrong or _scream_, even, it's that bad, but the only noise he manages is a wet gurgle -- his throat's filling up with fluid and he tastes copper, light searing his eyes and the street under him freezing -- and his skin feels like it's on fire, peeling, crackling, alchemy thick in the air --

*

"Viral," Simon says again as soon as Viral drops to his knees, "what's happening?" But it doesn't look like Viral can answer, maybe can't even _hear_ him. The reaction holding his cells together is coming undone, alchemical bonds dissolving as the chimera's separate parts reject each other. He hits the ground, choking, frothing at the mouth.

Simon kneels beside him, reaches for his wrists -- he's clawing at the pavement, and he'll hurt himself worse like that. "Viral, hold on, okay," Simon tells him. "You're going to pull through. I'll help."

He throws a leg over Viral's waist to try to keep him down, and plants both hands on Viral's chest. He can feel the shape of the Helix Alchemist's work, the hissing, snapping coils of power that bind Viral's cells, and he reaches into them.

Most of Simon's alchemy is _good_, or he wouldn't be in the State corps. But not a lot of people have seen him do his real specialty. He pushes his own power, the bright green of the spiral, out along the lines of the dissolving reaction, pushes _hard_ \-- let those bonds hold, make them stay, make them solid enough to heal. Let this combination work, make it stronger and more certain and more powerful, spinning out from the beginning to boundless potential: not a closed circle but a spiral that has no end, no limit, no boundary. Green light blazes around them in the alley and Simon holds on, forces the reaction with all his might until it takes, until Viral stops spasming under him, stops choking and _breathes_.

His hair's fallen back off his forehead, enough to expose the scarring on the right side of his face, the hollow of his missing eye. Even spiral alchemy can't bring back what's already gone. "Simon?" he says. He's not even hoarse.

"Better?" Simon asks. He feels a little shaky himself, but he can feel the reaction in Viral's body pulsing steady as a heartbeat under his hands.

Viral nods. His eye is fixed on Simon's face, the pupil almost round in the dim light. "You just saved my life, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Simon says. "It was a matter of time before that combination broke down. You're just lucky it happened before you found a way to get rid of me."

"Heh. Stubborn son of a bitch." Viral smirks, and then his face turns wary. All his expressions are just a little weird now, with the chimera parts to flatten the angles of his face and change the shape of his mouth. "Is it going to happen again?"

"No," Simon says confidently. He'd be amazed if _anything_ could hurt Viral after this. "Who the hell do you think I am?"

"An obnoxious bastard," Viral says, smiling ferally. "Who saved my life." He brings his hands up, careful of his claws as he rests them on Simon's thighs. "And who seems to like sitting in my lap."

"Shut up," Simon answers, scrambling to get up -- and then he notices the way Viral's nostrils flare, like he's...scenting for something. "Don't tell me you want me there."

Viral _leers_ at him, climbing to his feet with easy, predatory grace. "Ask me again after that drink," he says.

Adrenaline's still humming in Simon's veins, and it's easy to return Viral's cocky smile. "Yeah, okay," he says. "You'd better have a good answer for me when I do."


End file.
